September 11 survivor who escaped the North Tower remembers
"All of a sudden I hear a whooshing sound and an explosion," said Scott Diamond
WESTBURY, Nassau County (WABC) -- The September 11th memorial in Eisenhower Park on Long Island is a place for deep reflection.
It is where we found Scott Diamond.
"All of a sudden I hear a whooshing sound and an explosion," he said.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Scott was at his desk inside the North Tower when the first plane hit the building.
"I'm seeing debris raining down, flames and smoke coming out of the tower," he said.
In all of the years since the terror attack - now 23 - Scott has never been to the service held in Lower Manhattan.
As is the case for thousands of others who made it out alive, the emotional scars are deep.
Scott is now part of what he considers a forgotten group.
"I don't want to take anything away from the people who lost their lives or the first responders or any of those heroes, but we lived through it too," he said.
Scott will never forget taking the elevators to the 44th floor of Tower 1, then the endless stairs - and at one point an announcement saying the building was secure, everyone could return to their desks.
But Scott says he couldn't. Too many people were walking down.
Then at 9:03 a.m., Scott says, "the building shook, and the lights briefly went out. And the first thing that came to my mind was, I ain't going back to my desk."
Scott made it out, and while riding home on the LIRR a flood of emotions took over.
"Worry about the country, worried about what my family knew or didn't know," he said.
Scott says he hopes no one will ever forget the cowardly, evil attack - and remember how this country came together.
"They need to work towards never letting something like that ever happen again," he said.
FOR MORE: Complete coverage of the September 11 remembrance
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